Ground Report

At least five people were killed and four others injured in a bomb blast in a Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express in Assam’s Golaghat district early on Thursday morning. The explosion, carried out by suspected militants, happened in the luggage van of the 2423A Dibrugarh-Guwahati-Delhi Rajdhani between Naujan and Sugajan at around 1 am, according to sources in the North Eastern railway. A shadowy adivasi insurgent group, Adivasi National Liberation Army (ANLA), has claimed responsibility for the terror attack. Our cadres triggered the blast using a remote system and we shall continue with such attacks in the coming days," Dilip Beg, a top the rag-tag ANLA leader, told reporters by telephone from an undisclosed location. The ANLA is a rebel group active in Golaghat and Karbi Anglong districts of eastern Assam and fighting for special rights for the Adivasis, one of the 120 tea plantation workers’ communities. The ANLA leader said his group would not remain quiet until the government conferred Scheduled Tribe status to the adivasis in Assam that would bring in more rights and privileges for the community in the state. "We have been forced to take up arms by the government and we shall not rest until our community gets special recognition like a scheduled tribe status," Beg said. Five people died on the spot while the four injured were rushed to Golaghat Civil hospital. The luggage van was damaged as well as small portion of track. The train resumed its journey at around 6 a.m. after passengers in the affected van were shifted to a 3 tier AC boggie. Top railway officials have rushed to the site. A low intensity bomb was apparently placed on the track. A luggage-cum-passenger coach was partially damaged. This is the first bomb blast on the Dibrugarh-New Delhi Rajdhani, although the train had been targeted twice before, once in January this year and earlier in June last year. Over 40 passengers of Delhi-bound Kamrup Express were killed in a similar attack carried out by the Bodo militants in 1996-97. The Rajdhani Express is a popular air-conditioned train connecting India’s northeast with the capital. It can carry 900 passengers, but wasn’t running at full capacity. Several rebel groups are fighting for autonomy or independence in the region. The militants say India’s national government exploits the northeast’s rich natural resources while doing little for the area’s indigenous people, most of whom are ethnically closer to nearby Myanmar and China than to the rest of India. All the dead passengers were Hindi-speaking migrant workers from Bihar, the police official said. On December 4 last year, a powerful explosion hit the engine of a passenger train in the same area, although it failed to impact the coaches. The Kamrup Express was bound for Tinsukia in eastern Assam from Guwahati when the blast took place.